DESCRIPTION:
The GAT-X105+AQM/E-X02 Sword Strike Gundam is designed with close combat in mind. Unlike the other configurations of the Strike Gundam, the Sword Strike Gundam features no beam rifles or cannons. The main armament of this configuration is the 15.78 meter long "Schwert Gewehr" anti-ship sword. This long sword is capable of easily slicing apart a mobile suit or causing substantial damage to a battleship. A similar sword design is later utilized by the GAT-X133 Sword Calamity. The Sword Strike Gundam is also outfitted with a "Panzer Eisen" rocket anchor on its left forearm. The rocket anchor can be fired along a line and resembles the "Gleipnir" anchor used by the GAT-X207 Blitz Gundam. Additionally, the Sword Strike Gundam's left shoulder houses a "Midas Messer" beam boomerang. As is the case with the other Striker packs, the AQM/E-X02 Sword Striker can also dock with the support fighter FX-550 Sky Grasper.

The Sword Strike is the Strike Gundam equipped with the AQM/E-X02 Sword Striker pack. It is the second Striker pack to be used by Kira Yamato and the least commonly used equipment.

COMBAT CHARACTERISTICS
The Sword Strike is a mobile suit designed for close quarters combat, thus making it the most suitable choice in an area where little collateral damage can be risked such as in a colony interior, or within the hanger of an allied base. The Schwert Gewehr sword is the primary weapon and its large size allows it to easily cut a mobile suit in half, or to cut off sections of a ship such as the guns.
Mounted on the Sword Strike's left arm is a small shield that houses a rocket anchor, capable of snatching and pulling in enemy mobile suits. As a secondary weapon the Midas Messer can be used as projectile weapon that often catches enemy machines off guard because of its ability to return to its thrower.

ARMAMENTS
-Ingelstellung: Mounted in the Strike's head are two 75mm multi-barrel CIWS. This light projectile weapons are used to intercept missiles and to destroy lightly armored vehicles.
-Armor Schneider: Stored in the Strike's hips is a pair of folding combat knives. These knives do not need power from the Strike, can be thrown, and are rather effective the joints and under-armored sections of ZAFT mobile suits.
-Schwert Gewehr: The Schwert Gewehr is the Sword Strike's largest and primary weapon. It is a 15.78m physical blade that has a beam saber emitter along the cutting edge. The large blade is designed to easily slice mobile suits in half or to slice large ships.
-Panzer Eisen: A rocket anchor weapon built into the Sword Strike's shield. It has a grappling claw that can catch enemy units to pull them into the Sword Strike's combat range
-Midas Messar: Stored on the Sword Strike's left should armor is a beam boomerang. It is a throwing weapon that uses the physics of a boomerang to return to the owner, often catching enemy units by surprise.

HISTORY
The Sword Strike was first used inside Heliopolis to counter a ZAFT attack comprised of GINNs using D-equipment. The Sword Strike destroyed one GINN it dueled using a combination of its Midas Messar and Schwert Gewehr.
Its second use occurred while the Archangel was stationed at Artemis asteroid. The Blitz had infiltrated the base and destroyed the light-wave shield emitters. The Sword Strike sortied it in an attempt to minimize collateral damage.
Ultimately it was the Sword Strike that destroyed the Blitz, at a battle that occurred on an island just outside of Orb waters. The Sword Strike had been about to finish the Aegis, but the Blitz de-cloaked itself as it attacked. In the resulting confusion the Sword Strike cut right into the mobile suits cockpit, killing the pilot and causing the machine to explode.

GAME NOTES
*Striker Packs: The Strike Gundam was meant to make use of Striker Packs, modular attachments that would change the Strike's equipment and weapons loadout as needed for any given mission or time. They usually have a main unit that fits to the mobile suit's back, however the Gundam has hard points for connecting equipment on various parts of it's body, mainly on the back, shoulders and lower arms.
While each pack has a different setup (described in each individual entry), there are a few similarities to be mentioned.
Each pack was also meant to be attached to an FX-550 Sky Grasper, an aerial combat fighter meant to be able to deliver new Striker Packs to the Strike Gundam while still on the heat of a battle. The Sky Graspers can also use the striker pack's weapons and equipment for themselves at any time while they are still attached.
While in space, striker packs were known to be launched from the Archangel's launch deck to meet the Strike in space while it flew along a straight lone path in front of the ship. This was the improv method of replacing the packs in space, especially when the Strike's power levels became critical. Many times Kira Yamato, Mu La Flaga and the Archangel's crew won battles against the Creuset Team and their stolen G Machines simply because the Strike could last longer in a battle than they could, depleting their power batteries and forcing them to retreat.
To catch and attach a Striker Pack from a Sky Grasper, a Mecha Piloting roll of Moderate Difficukty must be made. To catch/attach one with a launch in space, a roll of Ver Difficukt Difficukty must be made.
Finally, another recurring event with the Strike and it's packs was its power being depleted, only to be restored by a new striker pack in battle. For this, every time a striker pack is attached to the Strike Gundam, it has an extra power supply of 100 points added to it's Ultracompact Power Battery (see below). This is added to the normal power point supply it would have otherwise.
It was never said if the Strike's power was fully restored by the striker packs, or only partially so, or even if it's main power was in the pack or the mobile suit, or even if they both had an equally fully supply of power. Since Kira Yamato, a Coordinator, was fighting four other Coordinators, and all five of them used G Machines, it is highly possible that the Strike had access to much more than stated in these rules. If players/GMs wish to changes things around, the previously mentioned ides should point you the right way.

*Operating System: When the Gundams were hijacked by ZAFT, the OS was minimal and incomplete, just enough to get it to move (1D Maneuverability, 0D Fire Control to all weapons). The pilots of the Creuset Team took their four machines directly back to their baseship while a battle erupted between ZAFT GINNs and the Earth Alliance space forces. At the baseship, all data in the G-Units was downloaded, while they quickly programmed an OS into their computers that worked and would make them combat-ready.
The result of this are the stats as they are now, with the same rules as the "Natural Pilots" from all of ZAFTs other mobile suits (all Maneuverability and Fire Control Dice are 1D and all Difficulties are one level higher to Natural pilots until a proper operating system is installed, then they may pilot the machine as normal). However, when the Gundams first landed on Earth, they had to update their OS again for "contact pressure" for whenever they jumped on land and moved around (1D Maneuverability in Atmosphere/on Ground), and "heat convection" for when they used beam weaponry in high-temperature environments (ranged beam weaponry is at half or third of full range). Kira Yamato did this for the Strike Gundam on the fly, always in the middle of combat, while the Creuset Team eventually had these updates made as they persued the Archangel across Earth.
If a Gundam (or any other Gundam SEED mobile suit, for that matter) is ever aquired with this lack in it's Operating System, then a Very Difficult Computer Program/Repair skill check must be made to adjust the Gundam's systems to these situations (Heroic Difficulty if in the middle of battle!!!).

*"Schwert Gewehr" 15.78 Meter Anti-Ship Sword: this large close combat weapon mixes a real physical sword with beam saber technology to create a devestating weapon. It uses it's beam damage (4D) to reduce and equal amount of Armor Dice (Hull Dice for ships) to pips when targets are hit by the sword, like with normal beam sabers, but this weapon also uses the mobile suit's Strength to deal damage with the physical parts of the weapon.
An added aspect of the Beam Sword is that the beam can simply be deactivated and used like a regular sword in combat situations where the beam would not be applicable (such as fighting underwater), and the whole thing still deals 8D total damage when equipped and used by the Strike.
This version of the Anti-Ship Beam Sword must be used in both hands of the mobile suit to recieve the 2D Fire Control dice. If used one-handed, it will not have the bonus.
Also, this version has a less powerful beam blade in the pommel (hand grip) that can be used for sneak attacks by crafty pilots.

*Anti-Beam Combat Shield: The Sword Strike Gundam comes with it's own version of an anti-beam defensive shield system. The "Panzer Eisen" rocket anchor weapon system is mounted on the shield itself. But the strange thing about the shield (at least for anyone who watched Gindam SEED closely) is that, though it is much smaller than most other shields used in the series, it actually blocked more than the others ever did without being destroyed, even the GINN ion cannons and the Phonon Maser energy weapons employed by ZAFTs underwater mobile suits, and barely seemed to take a scratch.
For this reason (and with the possibility that the Sword Striker Pack's shield was designed for parrying beam sabers), this shield has the usual 3D dice for parrying attacks, with a special +5D when used against energy beam weaponry. However, it must still be parried successfully to defend against the attack.

*Beam Boomerangs: These weapons are a mix of ranged and close combat. They can be grasped by a mobile suit's hands and thrown at a nearby enemy, then return to the thrower or recovered on the battlefield if able to do so. Typically, this is almost always what they are used for, but there have been instances where beam boomerangs have been used as improvised close combat weapons like a shorter, less powerful beam saber. Either way, they deal damage like a beam saber, reducing Armor Dice to pips equal to their Damage Dice.
Beam Boomerangs may attack enemy targets as they return after being thrown. The pilot must decide which method he will use on a target when it is thrown.

*Phase Shift (PS) Armor: This is the defensive system that makes the Gundams so fearful in combat and impervious to ballistics and explosive weapons. When activated, take the number in front of the Hull Dice and subtract this every round from the Gundam's battery points, along with the number from any Damage Dice that hit the Gundam (see "Ultracompact Energy Battery" below).
An alternate rule to do this (if players/GMs wish to do so) is to not subtract the entire Hull Dice number from the Battery (5), but subtract "1" instead, but still subtract the full Damage Dice number of any attacks that hit the Gundam.
PS Armor makes the unit impervious to weapon types such as ballistics (machine guns of every type, bullet type weaponry), explosives (such as missiles and grenades, BUT, not Proton Torpedoes if you happen to be using them for some reason), and all physical attacks (such as mecha mel?e weapons like the GINN Sword).
PS Armor does NOT protect against energy/beam weapons at all (though if it had a strong enough power supply such as a Death Star scale nuclear reactor, energy/beam weapons would then become harmless).
PS armor also protects against atmospheric reentry and keeps the Gundam from burning up and being destroyed.

*Ultracompact Energy Battery: In the Gundam SEED setting, nuclear power has been rendered near useless by use of Neutron Jammers (N-Jammers). ZAFT attempted to prevent the use of nuclear weapons after the "Bloody Valentine" incident, where Junius Seven of the PLANTs was destroyed by a nuclear attack by Naturals. Using N-Jammers extensively with their ships, as well as deploying them all over the Earth deep underground, use of nuclear reactors is all but impossible until the development of the Neutron Jammer Cancelers. Therefor, most technological devices use alternate means of power sources. Most mobile suits and mobile armors use ultracompact energy batteries. While their operation time may be limited, most of these vehicles still have plenty of time to complete their sortie missions before having to return to base.
To represent this, take a mobile suit/mobile armor/ship's Hull Dice and multiply the number by a hundred (100), adding 25 per pip (500 for the Strike Gundam). This is the Battery's power. Decrease by one point per round of combat while the mobile vehicle is active after launch. Any energy weapons directly connected to the battery drain it by a number equal to the Damage Dice they inflict, per use (such as beam rifles, beam cannons or beam sabers, etc.). Any special equipment that shield or help the mobile vehicle (such as energy shields, Phase Shift armor or Mirage Colloid) deplete the battery by a number equal to it's Hull Dice. Any other variants will list any differences in their entries.

*Self-Destruct System: Each G Unit was initially equipped with a self-destruct device to keep the technologies they incorporated from falling into enemy hands. However, the Earth Alliance's fears came true as four of the machines were captured then used by ZAFT pilots against them in turn, their unique systems duplicated by the Coordinators and used to build newer, stronger models that outdo their previous models, such as the GINN, which had already been so hard to overcome in the first place.
When the self-destruct is used, it does damage as the Gundam's Hull dice as capital scale. Against Phase Shift armor at point-blank range, the PS cannot soak the intense energy unleashed and takes damage normally.

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